Casting Shadows
by Kraewen
Summary: "Sayuri, huh?" He rolled the name on his tongue. Sayuri - little lily. "Yeah. Yeah, I like it." Shikaku said with a lazy smile. It kind of fit her. (Fem!Harry)


AN

Hi everyone, I started to write this when I had written myself into a corner with 'The Avalon Project', and just wanted to write something else for a bit. Recently, I found the opportunity to finish the first chapter and here you have the result.

Please note that Harry Potter and Naruto are the property of their respective owners, and that I do not gain any monetary advantage from publishing this fic, nor do I intend to do so.

My fiancée was kind enough to act as my beta again, and it's thanks to her that many mistakes do not make it into the published version.

Now, I hope you enjoy 'Casting Shadows', and if you would let me know how you like it, I'd appreciate it a lot!

/AN

**Casting Shadows**

The opportunities where Shikaku was required to leave the village had become decidedly more scarce since he had taken on the position as Konoha's Jonin Commander. A fact he found very agreeable for a number of reasons. For one, there was the obvious advantage that far fewer people were trying to kill him in-village. That was nice. Danger might be a stable in any shinobi's life, but - in his humble opinion - only morons would actually go and search it out. Trouble always found you soon enough anyway, no need to actively seek it.

It also allowed him to spend more time with his family. Having the opportunity to come home to his wife and son every day, was not a luxury many active shinobi had, and he was well aware of how lucky he was in that regard. It was one of the reasons why not a lot of ninjas were living in stable relationships - and it was even worse for those who didn't have the kind of support structure a clan could provide.

Nonetheless, there were times when Shikaku would drop everything, grab the next best mission scroll that would carry him as far away as possible and make himself scarce for a few days. Between enemy ninja and an angry, irate wife, he would choose to face the ones trying to skewer him with pointy things any time of any day. Just to be clear, that meant the enemy ninja. Yoshino prefered blunt weapons.

Shikamaru would turn seven in a few days and Yoshino had decided that this had to be celebrated like the momentous occasion it seemed to be. Apparently his enthusiasm in preparing said event, however, had not been up to her expectations. Honestly, he didn't know why she would make such a fuss about it. Shikamaru was a Nara. As long as he had a place to nap, he was as happy as a clam at high water.

In hindsight, he should not have said that out loud.

To escape her wifely wrath he had grabbed Inoichi and Chouza and hightailed it out of Konoha. A few days of sleeping on forest soil while they delivered a package to Suna was a much preferable fate, than being relegated to the torture rack that was the living room couch. Inoichi always said he was just being dramatic, but Shikaku still swears that Yoshino had done …. _something! _to this infernal sofa to make it feel like he was lying in a stone pit. Especially since it always reverted back to its usual fluffiness as soon as he was allowed back into their marital bed.

That was a week ago and the trio had slowed down to a civilian pace while they closed the last few steps back home in the shadow of the great gate. He sensed Inoichi pull up beside him.

"Think she's still mad?" he asked, with a knowing smirk and Shikaku let his shoulder slump. Of course he would ask that, just to annoy him. Traitor.

"Who knows. Could go both ways, honestly. Troublesome woman." He gave an honest effort not to pout, but by the way Inoichi cocked his eyebrow and Chouza's lips quirked, it might not be very effective. Eh, those two could always look straight through him anyway.

"Ah, look at it this way Shikaku" Chouza let his hand fall heavily on his shoulder. "You still have a few days until Shikamaru's birthday. Plenty of time to get back into her good graces."

"That's right." Inoichi weighed in. "You know how it works by now. All you have to do is to follow her every command. For a month or so. Easy." His lips stretched into a teasing grin and Chouza squeezed his shoulder comfortingly, but couldn't quite avoid showing bis own amusement.

Shikaku grumbled. "You're the worst. Sometimes I don't even know why we're friends..." They had just passed the gates and had begun to approach the check-in point, when Shikaku interrupted himself as a faceless Anbu operative seemingly flickered into existence next to them and gave them a short nod of acknowledgement.

"Nara-san, Yamanaka-san. Hokage-sama requests your immediate presence at the hospital."

Straightening his back from his slouched posture and discarding the casual banter with his team, Shikaku immediately became alert and shared a glance with his friends, seeing his own thoughts mirrored in their miens.

Hospital. That rarely meant good news.

"Acknowledged." Shikaku confirmed, and the Anbu vanished without another word, as quietly as he had come.

Shikaku spared a glance to the checkpoint, and one of the shinobi on duty - Inuzuka, the clan markings showed prominently on his face - had apparently listened in, and merely flicked his wrist in a vague shooing motion, giving them the clearance to enter.

A second later they were racing over the rooftops towards their destination, Chouza along with them. His presence had not been requested, but neither Shikaku, nor Inoichi had thought for a moment that he would stay behind. If something had happened, if any one of them was affected, they would deal with it together. They always had.

The hospital was only a short distance away, it's location had been deliberately chosen to allow for fast access from the main gate, so any returning teams that required medical attention would receive it post-haste.

Closing in on their destination, they could easily identify the Hokage waiting for them at the main entrance, the red and white robes of his office making him a recognizable figure. Right next to him Shikaku spotted Inoichi's colleague from Konoha's Torture and Interrogation department, Morino Ibiki, dressed - as if in deliberate contrast - in the grey uniform of the interrogators, complete with his trademark black trench coat. They touched down in front of the white tinted building, and quickly fell into a bow for the Hokage.

"Ah, thank you all for coming so quickly. My apologies for commandeering you here, right on your arrival, the timing was simply too good to pass up. We're having a bit of a situation that you should know about."

"Hokage-sama?" Inoichi stated, his inflection somewhere between a respectful greeting and a question.

Instead of answering, the Sandaime-Hokage eyed Chouza for a moment, but ultimately didn't seem to mind his presence, as he turned around and bid them to follow him.

Inside the hospital Shikaku kept a discreet eye on the staff, but he could see no meaningful glances, sneaky gossiping or sympathizing looks towards any of them that would indicate that whyever they were here, had anything to do with them or their families. The staff in this place were incorrigible rumour mongers, if anything of interest would have happened, it probably would already have made the round. He let a bit of his anxiety go, but he still had no idea what it was, that he was doing here.

The Sandaime led them to a corridor on the second floor, and the names printed on the glass-paned doors told Shikaku that these were offices for the more senior medical personnel. They stopped in front of a door that read 'Satō Airi', where the Hokage knocked to announce his presence and stepped in without waiting for an answer.

Inside, they were met by a woman wearing the white coat favored by most medical professionals, and Shikaku quickly committed her appearance to memory. Tall and pale, about thirty five years of age. Black hair, reaching to the middle of her back, currently tied in a simple ponytail. She wore fashionable glasses with a slim, rectangular frame, and Shikaku noticed with interest that the lenses distorted the image he could see through them, even from the distance. She must have pretty bad eyesight if she needed strong enough lenses for the refraction to be that noticeable. Probably not a medic-nin then. A quick glance to her hands confirmed that. She was a civilian doctor. How curious.

She promptly rose from behind her desk, displayed an elegant bow and offered them a seat. The office was relatively spacious, but it clearly wasn't intended to comfortably hold six people. At least if one of them was an Akimichi. Ibiki declined the offer to sit and instead posted himself into the corner where he could keep an eye on the door and window. Chouza - no doubt suspicious whether the furniture would fit him - followed his example and leaned his frame against the wall, arms crossed.

"Well then," The Sandaime cleared his throat, once Shikaku and Inoichi had seated themselves. "I would like to introduce you to Satō Airi. Satō-san, these are Yamanaka Inoichi, Morino Ibiki, Akimichi Chouza and Nara Shikaku. I believe you have met his wife, Yoshino." He gestured to each of them in turn, as he introduced them and they gave a short greeting in acknowledgement. Ibiki stayed as silent and stone faced as always, of course.

When Shikaku was introduced, he perked up a little and made an interested noise. As the Naras chief of pharmacy and a trained medic herself, Yoshino had regular dealings with the hospital, but he couldn't remember her ever mentioning the woman who sat in front of him. Sadly, nobody elucidated on the remark, but at least the Hokage finally seemed to come to the point.

"Now, best to bring everyone up to speed." He cleared his throat again. "Yesterday afternoon something triggered a powerful explosion in the Nara Clan forest." Immediately alarmed, Shikaku straightened himself. He had discarded the possibility of his family being hurt, had he made a mistake?

Obviously anticipating his interruption, the Hokage held out a placating hand and continued to speak. "Your wife as well as your cousin Ensui were the first shinobi on-site. There was quite a bit of damage to the forest, but - more importantly - they found a child, severely injured, in what appears to be the middle of the blast. Curiously, the girls injuries were not the result of the explosion."

"What?" Inoichi states, clearly as puzzled as Shikaku himself.

The Hokage nodded, with a serious face. "The identity of the child is as of yet unknown. Yoshino-san was able to stabilize her, before she was transferred into Satō-sans care, but we will come to that in a moment. With the consent of your wife, I have initiated an investigation to find out what had caused the detonation." The forest was generally closed off clan ground, and nobody who was not affiliated with the Nara was allowed to enter it uninvited. Shikaku simply nodded his agreement to his wife's decision. "Sadly, the results were inconclusive. There were no remnants of explosive materials of any kind and we found no traces of chakra, ruling out that it was caused by a jutsu. Although it should be noted that the investigation was performed 20 minutes after the fact, so it is entirely possible that the chakra had dissipated already."

There was a moment of silence while everyone absorbed the information and Shikaku slumped back into his seat. "So, what you're saying is that we have an unidentified child, that has entered the Nara grounds and possibly Konoha itself through means unknown, don't know where her injuries come from, why she was injured in the first place, nor what caused the explosion and why it didn't hurt her?" he laid out in an annoyed drawl.

The Hokages face was stoic. "Yes."

Shikaku groaned.

"Well, what do we know, then?" Inoichi piped up, displaying the little tick in his eyebrows that he always wore when he was thinking hard. Or was annoyed. Honestly, most of the time it was hard to tell the difference.

"Well, I am hoping that Satō-san can tell us something about her patient." He gestured towards the waiting woman. "Please, what did you find?"

The doctor - clearly a little bit nervous, now that she suddenly was the sole focus of five shinobi - shifted a little but quickly recovered herself, and slipped into a professional stance to deliver her report.

"The child was brought in at about 4.30 in the afternoon. We estimate her to be around six years of age, certainly no older than seven. Her features are foreign, with fair skin, black hair and green eyes. As far as recognizable markers go, there is a prominent scar on her forehead - probably the remnant of an older injury. She is small for her age, underweight and malnourished. Her general appearance was dishevelled, and we think that she may have been living on the streets, but we couldn't say for how long." She kept her voice calm and professional, but she was clearly unhappy about her patients state.

"When she came in, her right lung had collapsed due to a stab wound in her chest. The wound was inflicted through a pointed, conical instrument, but we couldn't match it to any traditional shinobi weapon, or civilian for that matter. It was a pointed blade, short and very thin, used to stab instead of slash. Longer than the usual kunai blade, though." She waited a moment to see, whether or not they had questions, but when none came, she continued.

"The girl was in surgery for about 4 hours, and we were able to heal the stab wound and restore the function of her lung. Furthermore, there were multiple abrasions and bruises all over her body, and a good number is located in a way that makes us think that they were sustained while she tried to defend herself. These were treated as well. All those injuries should heal nicely with a bit of time."

"You said 'those injuries'." Inoichi interjected. "There were more, then?"

This time, she was decidedly more hesitant. The first real crack in the professional attitude she maintained, but she nodded nonetheless. "Yes, Yamanaka-san. And to be quite honest, neither myself nor my colleagues are sure what we should make of it."

"Another mystery, seriously?" Shikaku moaned. Usually he didn't mind complex problems. More questions just meant more starting points to unravel them, but this was getting ridiculous. This was a child, not a seasoned infiltration specialist. Hopefully anyway.

"Indeed. After the more pressing injuries were treated, further examination showed that her larynx, erm that is her voice box," she added, mindful of her audience "was badly damaged, nearly to the point of permanent disability. Notably, there was absolutely no visible indication of an injury in the first place. This type of injury is usually the result of external influence, like receiving a punch, or a hit with a weapon. Her skin was perfectly unblemished though, no bruise, no cut, no nothing."

Everyone's eyebrows rose at that. "That is odd." Chouza voiced their thoughts.

"Oh, I am still coming to the really odd part." Satō sounded immensely frustrated. "After the injury was found, Takahashi-san joined us. He is our best surgeon when it comes to these kinds of injuries, and we spent another 3 hours trying to reconstruct her voice box as good as possible. We managed to restore it to about 60 percent functionality, which was a small miracle in itself."

"Hmmm, what is the odd part, then?"

"The odd part, Hokage-sama, is that a few minutes after we completed the procedure, her larynx reverted back to its previous state. As if we had never even touched it."

There was a beat of silence.

"... that's just not possible." Shikaku said.

The doctor huffed and pursed her lips. "I agree."

Chouza shifted on the wall. "Any idea what could cause something like this? Some kind of jutsu, maybe?"

"If it is, it's not like any I've ever seen. We checked for foreign chakra signatures, but that was a negative as well."

"Hokage-sama?" During his long life, the Third Hokage had amassed quite a few monikers, the most well known being 'God of Shinobi' or 'The Professor' for his vast knowledge about the ninja arts in general, and Ninjutsu in particular. If any of them was likely to know what would allow such a thing to happen, it would be him.

But he too frowned and had to shake his head.

"Disregarding how the damage was done for the moment." Ibiki broke his silence for the first time. "Can you tell us, whether or not the damage was self-inflicted? Maybe a suicide jutsu gone wrong, in an attempt to avoid being questioned?"

Satō bristled, showing her displeasure about the insinuation about her patient. "No, there is no indication that she deliberately injured herself. In fact, the _child_ had woken up this morning and suffered a panic attack when she noticed that she couldn't speak. We had to put her back to sleep."

Unimpressed by the emphasis the doctor had put on the word 'child', Ibiki merely raised an eyebrow. "There are ninja who are no older than her. We need to know whether or not she is a threat."

Ah yes, she looked scandalized now, and Shikaku couldn't find it in him to disagree. It's not exactly a point of pride, even among most shinobi, but sadly child assassins were a very real possibility and the danger had to be evaluated.

Before the situation could devolve into an argument, the Hokage interrupted them. "Satō-san, in your professional opinion, has your patient undergone shinobi training?"

She pursed her lips, but dutifully shook her head. "No, her chakra-network is active but undeveloped and her muscles and skeleton show no signs of having undergone any kind of special training. She is just a little girl, no more, no less."

The Third nodded. "Very well. Still, we will need to question her. If for no other reason than to find out who she is and what happened to her."

Satō was not happy, but nodded nonetheless. "Please remember that she cannot give answers verbally and that she was in surgery only yesterday - we can wake her up, but she is still under pain medication and is therefore likely to be only partially responsive."

"We will be careful, of course." He agreed kindly. "Inoichi-kun, if you would please lead the interview?" He waited for the affirmation, and then continued. "I would also like you to prepare yourself to perform a mindwalk, should it become necessary."

Seeing that Satō was about to speak up, he quickly added "Satō-san, it would probably be prudent to have someone oversee her vitals if that is the case. May we count on you to be present?"

"Of course." She replied tersely. The _I-dare-you-to-try-and-keep-me-away-from-my-patient_ went unsaid, but was understood regardless. Medical professionals were scary like that, Shikaku thought fondly, thinking of his wife.

A few minutes later their little procession entered the patient's room and he blinked when he was suddenly engulfed in a frantic hug. He blinked again, when he identified the dark brown hair tickling his chin as his wife's.

"Shikaku, you're back. Thank god." She said relieved, and let go of him - allowing him to take in her appearance. She wore her usual ensemble of a long, colorful battle dress over black pants, but today her normally meticulous appearance was ruffled and he could see the faint traces of a sleepless night in her face.

"Yoshino?" Shikaku said, taken off-guard. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, um." She hesitated, uncharacteristically looking a little guilty, but calmed down when he placed his hand on her back. "I just thought someone should be here when she wakes up, you know." Yoshina gestured towards the bed where Shikaku could see a little form huddled into the sheets.

He made an understanding noise and resisted the urge to sigh. He should have known that she wouldn't leave her side, especially not if she was the one who found her. He really hoped the brat wouldn't turn out to be a spy or assassin or there would be no living with her.

And he couldn't say he wouldn't be affected either. He really was a sucker for little children, and seeing this slip of a girl lying in the hospital bed plucked at his heartstrings too.

At least Yoshino seemed to have forgotten that she was mad at him over all the drama. Little victories.

"You're here to question her?" Yoshino tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. If it hadn't been already obvious, it was a sure sign that she was nervous and Shikaku had to keep himself from reaching out and pulling her close. Even if the others were politely pretending to not be paying attention, Yoshino placed great value in her image as a fierce - and terrifying! - woman. As soon as she remembered that, she would be embarrassed over such a public display of affection - even if she'd enjoy it.

"Aa." He agreed instead. "She wake up yet?"

Yoshino shook her head. "No, not since this morning. She panicked and they had to put her back to sleep." Her mouth thinned into a line, and she couldn't avoid a sympathetic glance to the bed.

He sighed. This was going to be so troublesome.

"Should we get started then?"

-000-

Dragging himself a chair to the bedside, Inoichi sat down, careful not to disturb the girl buried to the chin in white bedding.

He had chosen the opposite side from where Yoshino and Satō-san had settled down. The girl would certainly be scared enough, no reason to add to that by making her face a joint front. They had all agreed - well, all except Ibiki - that they would make this questioning as unthreatening as possible. If she really was just a civilian child the whole situation would be daunting enough for her.

If she turned out to be an enemy agent, they could escalate this whole affair into a proper interrogation still.

God, he really hoped she wasn't. She was even smaller than his own daughter.

It took a few minutes after Satō-san had administered the drugs, but eventually she began to stir and they could watch her slowly become more aware of her surroundings. Yoshino reached out to take her hand into hers and began to rub slow circles over it with her thumb.

The girls eyes fluttered open at the unexpected contact and after a few seconds her uncomprehending thousand-yards stare made way for a confused frown. She opened her mouth, probably to make some kind of puzzled noise, but Satō had bent forward and gently held her index finger to the girls mouth.

"Shhh honey, please, try not to speak." The doctor continued to speak softly to her, and Inoichi leaned back into his chair to give her a moment to calm her patient down. The first moments of waking up after passing out were the most disorienting, as any shinobi could tell you and Inoichi had his fair share of own scares when he woke up in an unfamiliar environment.

Satō's attempts to soothe the girl did not seem to work, however. Her confusion quickly made way for uncertainty and fear, and he could see her eyes move nervously between the unfamiliar figures who crowded her hospital room. At least Ibiki has had the foresight to keep out of her view, he would certainly be the most intimidating figure in the eyes of a child. As it was, he could see her glance warily at Chouza's huge frame and the scars that marked Shikaku's face. Even if they made an effort not to appear intimidating, their physique clearly showed them to be dangerous men. At least Yoshino and himself were a bit more inconspicuous about their shinobi background, and anyone who hadn't met Sarutobi Hiruzen in anger, could easily disregard him as a kind old man.

Her hand moved up to her chest and after a moment of frantic searching it closed around something that he now saw was a charm, attached to a thin worn-looking necklace. Inoichi let his eyebrow rise a fraction. Usually the nurses would stow away any personal items their patients carried on them, while they were in their care. He had to suppress an eyeroll when he caught Yoshino's sheepish expression as she caught his look. Of course she would be the one to put the girls memento back on her. For all that she was a stern and formidable clan leader, this woman was such a mother. Before the girl could spiral into another panic attack, Inoichi quickly drew her attention onto him and began to speak, making sure to paste a calm smile onto his face.

"It is ok, I promise you, you are safe here. Nothing will happen to you. My name is Inoichi, and these are my friends…." he trailed off when he saw that there was only growing unease in her gaze, but no recognition or even understanding.

"Try to keep calm, you are perfectly safe." he tried again. "Now, can you show me that you understand what I am saying? You can simply nod your head."

The girl just stared back at him, confusion evident in her big eyes and when it became apparent that she would not answer, he let out an involuntary sigh and ran a distracted hand through his hair. He hadn't anticipated difficulties here, at least not so early into the interview.

He turned to the women on the other side of the bed. "Satō-san, um, since she doesn't seem to understand us, could the explosion have caused some damage to her hearing?"

The woman leveled a particularly unimpressed gaze on him, before she simply lifted her hand and snapped her fingers next to the child's ears. The girl jumped slightly and gave her doctor an unhappy squint of her eyes.

"As you can see, her hearing is just fine, Yamanaka-san." she replied surly. "You can rest assured that we actually do examine our patients when they come in, especially so if we don't know what happened to them."

"Ah, right." Inoichi mused with a sheepish expression and scratched his neck. He hadn't intended to insult the woman. "My apologies."

Still, that left the question of what to do now. She could hear just fine apparently, so was it a language barrier? There were a few local dialects, mainly used for whatever ceremonial or religious practices the local culture had begotten, but he had never encountered or heard from someone who couldn't understand the language of the Elemental Nations. There were other countries of course, at the very least to the west, but those were not exactly easily accessible and contact was so sparse you could handily call it nonexistent.

Since he couldn't match her facial features with any region he knew, it would fit, though.

The rustle of clothes behind him, told him that Shikaku was slowly making his way over to the bed where he proceeded to turn a chair around, and slumped bonelessly down on it with a heavy sigh. On the way he had picked up a small notebook and a pen, so apparently his best friend had come to the same conclusion as Inoichi had himself. Good, trust Shikaku to always stay on top of things.

Giving Shikaku the go ahead with a quick hand sign out of the girls range of vision, the Nara picked up his pen and continued to scribble down a few kanji onto the paper under the tired, but wary eyes of their black haired patient. At least she was not in the middle of another panic attack.

Having finished, Shikaku held the notebook up to show her what he jotted down. "Shikaku." he pronounced carefully and indicated first himself, then his written name and then repeated the same with Inoichi.

For the first time, he could see a hint of understanding in her eyes and his lips twitched into a satisfied smile. Progress.

Shikaku apparently thought the same and handed her the notepad with an easy 'and now you'-gesture. She carefully reached for it, and clumsily gripped the pen in her right hand. Oh good, she could write then, so she was at least educated enough to write her name. She probably didn't come from a rural area then. His hope was quickly squashed though, when she showed them what she had jotted down. It was a word alright, but none like he had ever seen. Instead of kanji it consisted of several straight and the occasional curved lines, arranged in an unfamiliar horizontal design, written in a childish script big enough that it stretched over the whole width of the page. He could make no heads or tails out of it and by the frustrated expression on Shikaku's face, neither could he.

Catching the Hokage's eye and receiving a terse nod he gave an apologetic smile to the child who was back to eyeing them all with a wary expression on her face.

"Sorry dear, I guess we'll have to do this differently."

5 minutes later she was back to sleep again and he carefully put his hand on her forehead. He would have preferred to avoid this, but the language barrier had been an unexpected obstacle. This should hopefully give them some answers. With the familiarity of long practice he concentrated and began to carefully circulate his chakra, taking special care to keep the flow through the gates in his brain just so, and felt the anchors that bound his mind to his body gently loosen. He didn't need to undo them, just make them more flexible, so that he could reach - yes, like that.

When he opened his eyes, he no longer was in the hospital room.

When talking about mindscapes, most people expect vast and elaborate places, representations of their owners character and the experiences that shaped them into the people they were. That was essentially correct, but the end results were usually much less refined and often quite different from what they imagine. People expect a forest clearing for someone they know to be withdrawn or a library for a curious and inquisitive mind, but the truth of the matter is that such an elaborate mindscape is often only found as a result of both special training and lifelong effort.

Opposite of what you would expect, these kinds of mindscapes made his work much easier instead of harder. People trained their mind to help them organise their thoughts, emotions and memories. To make it easier to file and recall them, or even to disassociate with particular ones. Such a mind was a very useful tool for shinobi, everyone really. But they were not the only ones who could access their minds. He could too.

The mindscape he found himself in now was both very different and very familiar. Different because in the end every mind was unique and they could take such vastly different forms that you never ever found a mind that was identical to another. But it was also the familiar chaos of an untrained mind, where shapes and colors - both solid and fluent - reigned, where smells sang and he could see sounds clinging to their surroundings like moss on a stone.

He had expected the chaos of course, but as always, it was still a shock. His conscious mind was used to order, and things making sense, none of which he would find here. He needed a moment to get his bearings.

It was difficult to navigate in an untrained mind, but not impossible. More importantly though, the mind was malleable, especially when asleep. He would need to be careful not to impose his own will over hers, but he could gently nudge her along and by the time she awoke his influence would be gone already.

It took a few minutes of careful ministrations, but eventually he found that the space had rearranged itself so that he could navigate it without much difficulty. His surroundings were dark as if someone had thrown a vast blanket over the room, creating a dome with a myriad of tiny holes dispersed all over its surface. Light seeped sluggishly through the holes and where the fingers of light streamed through the room, they seemed almost manifested into a physical form, like ropes forming a grid, or a strange spiders web. Stepping closer he could see that each strand had a unique form, some differed in tone from a bright golden yellow to a pale grey, others were frayed as if close to ripping. Slowly extending a hand to the closest, he began to hear a murmuring in the back of his mind.

Memories, just like he suspected.

Satisfied that he had found what he came for, he retracted his hand and looked around for the youngest memory he could identify. There, a bit to his right was a strand glowing stronger than those around it, not yet dulled by time and half forgotten, but strong and bright instead. It pulsed as if agitated, like a person gasping for air in a drawn out sprint.

That's what he was looking for. He closed his hand around the thread.

_The smell of stale sweat and bad breath was nauseating, and with each exhale she could feel a new wave hitting the back of her head, warm and disgusting. The hand that held her neck in its grip was shaking, but it's grip was no less strong for it as he roughly led her along the bare corridor. She stumbled and by now it was only his hand that held her upright. Her ears were ringing and it took almost all she had to not pass out. She could feel a sizzling, burning pain where her captor had touched her throat with his stick when she wouldn't comply with his demand to be silent, but even through the pain she felt disassociated as if watching a film of things happening to someone else._

_The heavy door at the end of the hall was thrown open, and her captors grip tightened as he hauled her bodily in front of him, intent to use her as a shield. The blade in his other hand came to a rest on her chest. The men who rushed into the room were dressed similar to her captor, and in any other situation, their clothes would have made her pause, maybe even amuse her. There were two, one of them easily old enough to be a grandparent, but his stance was resolute and assertive. His hair and beard was long turned silver, and was lying in braids on his chest. He was wearing something like a robe, dust-grey with golden ornaments on the hem._

_The other man was younger, middle-aged maybe, and the deep red of his robe made his skin seem even darker than it was. Unlike his companion he radiated agitation, rather than confidence, but the furious glint in their eyes was the same. Both held the same kind of sticks in their hand, that her captor had used on her, aimed threateningly at the mans figure._

_She could see the old man's lips move, but the ringing in her ears was too loud to make out words. Whatever it was, the man who held her started to shake even more badly and she could feel his breathing become more frantic._

_She was unprepared when the impasse was suddenly broken. Even through her increasingly foggy vision, she could make out that the hallway was suddenly illuminated with colorful lights that seemed to shoot out of the men's sticks. When there suddenly was a sharp sensation in her chest, it was more surprise than actual pain that made her stumble out of her captors loosening grip and crash to the floor._

_Blinking, she looked down on herself and blinked again when she spotted the blade that seemed to be stuck in her chest up to the hilt._

'_That's not right', was the foremost thought that made it through the muddy feeling in her head. At least the ringing in her ears seemed to quiet down._

_With increasing difficulty she looked up again, and found the old man sinking to his knee next to her. His eyes were wide and there was something that looked like horror in them._

_How odd._

_Then the darkness swallowed her._

With a hiss, Inoichi let go of the memory as if burnt.

That was a bit more intense than he had expected. And it honestly brought up more questions than it answered.

He frowned unhappily, apparently he had to dig a little deeper. He reached for the next strand.

-000-

Shikaku knew that a Mindwalk was delicate and tiring work, especially so if you wanted to make sure not to harm your subject. The human mind worked much faster than its body, and so when they reconvened a scant few minutes after Inoichi had begun his work, the Nara could easily read the stress in his friends face as if the procedure he had just undertaken, had taken several hours instead of minutes.

Mindful of the exhausted Yamanaka, Chouza promptly slid his still half-full water flask over the table where it was received with a grateful smile. The Hokage waited patiently until Inoichi had taken two big gulps of water before he addressed him.

"Please tell us Inoichi-kun, what do you make of our young guest?"

"Well, Hokage-sama, I have performed a cursory examination of her most recent memories and those which were connected to them. For more detailed information I would have to go deeper, but I am confident that she is not a threat."

Shikaku lowered his head a little to conceal his amusement, when he saw the smug look that Satō directed at a stone faced Ibiki.

"Good, good. Did you find out where she came from?"

"To be honest, I have no idea. She is definitely not from anywhere in the Elemental Nations, though."

Shikaku raised his eyebrows, he had strongly suspected that when the girl had not displayed any understanding of their language, but he would have expected Inoichi to at least give them an idea of where she came from.

Acknowledging the Hokages similar response, his friend began to elaborate. "None of the people I could see in her memory displayed anything that I would affiliate with any culture known to me. Clothing, language, architecture, all unfamiliar." He spoke slowly, ordering his thoughts and Shikaku could see the familiar tick in his eyebrow make an appearance. "Wherever she came from, they had some very interesting technology available, and the infrastructure I could make out, was certainly impressive. No comparison to what we can show for."

"Oh? How interesting." The Third made a considering hum. "Inoichi-kun, after you have rested I would like you to compile a report about what you have seen, but for now let's keep our focus on the girl."

Nodding his assent, Inoichi continued.

"The girl was a runaway that fled from an abusive family. As Satō-san had suspected she ended up living on the streets."

"Abusive?!"

Surprisingly it was Chouza who interrupted Inoichi with his startled shout, but the scowls on Yoshino's and Satō's faces told Shikaku that the sentiment was universally shared. It was only Ibiki and the Hokage who kept their faces blank.

"As far as I can tell, the family she lived with resented her, though I couldn't tell you why. The abuse manifested mainly through enforced isolation and the withholding of affection and basic needs, such as food or fitting clothes. They did not seem to have been overtly violent - physically - but of course it doesn't need to be said, that a treatment such as this is it's very own form of violence."

"I'll say." muttered Chouza.

"After a particularly nasty episode, she seems to have found the courage to run away, but without a safe haven to turn to, well, you already know that she lived on the street. I'm afraid that a lot of the details and reasons for what happened next elude me - I did not find a lot of connected memories to them in her mind, so I theorize that she is unaware of them herself - that doesn't leave me with a whole lot to go on, so I'll just recount the events as I saw them."

"Mhm," the Hokage nodded his understanding "Please do."

"A few days after running away, she became aware that people were looking for her. Retrospectively, I would say that there were two different groups involved, though it wasn't apparent at the time. Thinking that they were trying to return her to her family, she began to evade them - quite successfully should be said - but eventually they caught up with her in what seemed to be an abandoned industry complex she had been squatting in. The man who seized her tried to restrain her, but the girl was kicking and biting and he had difficulty to subdue her, but what really seemed to trouble him was the screaming."

"He feared she would draw the other group to them?" Shikaku offered his guess and his friend nodded wordlessly.

"When she wouldn't let up, he performed some kinds of chakra techniques that he could use without hand seals."

"He was a shinobi, then?" Yoshino interjected.

"That's the thing," Inoichi shook his head "It has been pretty clear that he wasn't. When he tried to restrain her it was obvious that he had no notion of taijutsu and his physical fitness was worse than what I see in most of our own civilians. It has been pretty obvious that he had not used his chakra to enhance his endurance or augment his strength in any way. If it weren't for him using jutsu I would have put him down as a civilian."

"Hm, can you describe those jutsu, Inoichi-kun?" The query came from the Third.

"Of course, as I said, he did not use hand seals but he carried a stick that seemed to fill the same role in moulding his chakra into the required form, also he vocalized the jutsu but as it was in a different language I would have a hard time trying to even pronounce it, so I'm afraid that won't be any help. The jutsu was aimed at her throat and it left her with intense burning pain in the afflicted area. It disabled her from speaking or even vocalizing a scream. Afterwards he applied a genjutsu that left her apathetic and disassociated from what was happening around her."

"So whatever he did, it was the reason that her larynx was damaged and probably also why the operation was unsuccessful in restoring her voice?" asked his wife.

"I believe that is a safe bet, but I have no idea how it is still in effect. As I said, we found no foreign chakra in her system. Even if there was such a jutsu, it would still need the users chakra to function." explained Satō.

"Indeed." agreed the Hokage "It is a worrying development and could pose quite a danger, should we ever find ourselves at odds with these people. Please continue Inoichi-kun."

"There is not much more to tell honestly. After he successfully subdued the girl, her attacker tried to retreat with her but was stopped by two men that I believe were part of the other group looking for her. Notable was that both of them wielded the same kind of stick or chakra conductor as the assailant and wore similar clothing. One of them was dark skinned."

"Dark skinned, as in Kumo?"

"No, he was darker than the people from the land of lightning." Inoichi negated. "In any case, the girls attacker was obviously outmatched and he tried to use her as a human shield, kept her in front of him at bladepoint. The fight was over pretty quickly, but in the scuffle the girl ended up being stabbed in the chest. I think it happened accidentally, but sadly she quickly lost consciousness, so whatever happened afterwards that made her crash into the Nara forest, she wasn't awake to see it."

"And therefore will remain a mystery to us, too." the Third sighed heavily. "Thank you Inoichi-kun, well done as always." He paused to consider what he heard. "For the immediate future, as we're not positive from where exactly she came from, I see no way to return our new guest to her home and from what we heard right now, I do not believe it would be in her best interest anyway."

The declaration was met with several grumbled 'Damn right!', and the Hokage allowed himself an approving smile, before he turned towards the doctor.

"Satō-san, as the information about the nature of her injury is still very limited, how would you propose to proceed?"

"Honestly, there are not a lot of options left for us. I would give the reconstruction of her larynx another go, in the hope that whatever affected her wounds to reform has worn off in the meantime. Should that not work however, I see no other choice but to surgically remove her voice apparatus. Leaving the necrotizing tissue inside would be fatal eventually, not to speak of the pain it would cause her."

The Third nodded his head in understanding.

"Sadly, that's not entirely unexpected, let us hope for the best. That leaves us with the question of her placement. Barring other suggestions, I would alert the orphanage of their newest charge."

Seeing Yoshino's face at that declaration, Shikaku slouched deeper into his seat, waiting for the furniture to swallow him. He just knew what would be coming next.

With a sympathetic mien, Chouza patted his shoulder.

-000-

The first thing she became aware of when she regained her consciousness, was that the pain had dulled. Before, it had felt like someone had poured molten metal down her throat, leaving a sizzling, burning sensation that made her desperately clutch her hands around her neck, unable to so much as vocalize a scream.

She slowly opened her eyes, and as she waited for her vision to unblur, she lifted her hand and carefully felt the skin on her neck, only to find it numb to the touch. It felt kind of rough, a little like the feeling that would prompt you to clear your throat to shake it off, but when she tried to do just that, she found that she … just couldn't.

Her eyes widened in horror. That had happened before, she remembered now. She had woken up before and she hadn't known where she was and she had tried to scream, but she couldn't and…

With a racing heart she lifted her head to look around. This was the same room she had been in before, she was sure of it. It was white all over, no pictures on the wall, but she recognized the view out of the window showing a gigantic tree in full bloom.

Apparently her movement did not go unnoticed because she suddenly felt a hand touch her by the shoulder. Immediately alarmed, she jerked away, and her head turned around so fast, that she was left a little dizzy.

Next to her, sitting in an uncomfortable looking chair, was the same woman she had met when she woke up before. Her clothes were ruffled and she had dark bags under her eyes, but her vision was alert and assessing. Was that… had she watched over her while she slept?

Giving her a calm smile, the woman began to talk to her. She still couldn't understand a word she said, but her tone was soothing while she reached over to the table and filled a cup with, what looked like clear water. She pressed the cup into her hand, and motioned for her to drink, never letting the kind smile drop.

She eyed the cup suspiciously, but when she could find no fault with the clear water, and even a surreptitious sniff found nothing wrong with the liquid, she slowly lifted the cup to her mouth to take a sip. Curiously there was something like approval in the woman's gaze.

The cool water did not vanish the lingering unease in her throat completely, but it made it much better and she gave her benefactor a shy smile. When she opened her mouth to thank her, however, no sound would come forth.

Shocked, her hand flew back to her neck, fumbling when it found a firmly applied bandage instead of skin. She tried again, in vain, and could feel her breathing became frantic. What was this? Why couldn't she speak? It should be better now, the pain was almost gone, why didn't it work?!

She cast a panicked glance at the woman, but instead of reassurance, she only found pity there. Unbidden, tears rose into her eyes, and in a desperate attempt to produce… something, she opened her mouth wide to scream. Then, she screamed harder.

The only sound she produced was the rustling of her blanket.

Shaking violently, she could feel the bed dip as the woman settled herself next to her and blindly lashed out, her hands striking something firm. Instead of protesting however, calloused hands carefully took hold of her and navigated her struggling frame into the woman's lap.

Her resistance soon melted away, as her sobs became more forceful and her tears blurred her vision. The two of them stayed like this for a long time, but no matter how hard she cried, she remained silent.

-000-

It was late and Shikaku had been lying in bed, propped up against multiple pillows for almost two hours already. He had indulged in reading a book in the soft glow of the bedside lamp, when his wife finally slipped into their bedroom.

She was still surefooted and silent, but it was hard to overlook the uncharacteristically weary slump to her shoulders and the dark bags under her eyes. He knew that she had spent the day at the bedside of their new charge once again, and he didn't need to be as familiar with her as he was to see that it had been a difficult day. Yoshino looked like she had aged a decade, since he had seen her just this morning. The girl had woken up then.

Marking the page, he put away his book and patiently waited as she wordlessly slipped out of her clothes and changed into her nightgown. The comfortable one, not the pretty. She slipped artlessly under the blanket and wasted no time to crawl into his lap. It must have easily been 15 minutes until she spoke to him.

"We'll need to decide on what to call her, now that she will come to live with us." Yoshino prompted. "And since she can't tell us her name…" She left the rest of the sentence unvoiced. He knew anyway.

"Aa." Shikaku agreed. "I was thinking 'Shikako' is a … what?" He asked when she leaned away from him to fix him with a deadpan stare.

"'Deer-girl', seriously? You are one of the brightest minds in the whole village, and that's all you can come up with? You already named our son 'deer-boy', over my dead body will I let you call her that!"

"It was only a suggestion…" he mumbled, and slumped into his pillows. "Yours then?"

"Hmm." She was silent for a minute. "Have you seen the necklace she's wearing?"

He had. It was practically the only piece of jewellery on her, not that children her age were generally in the habit of carrying a lot, but the way she had continuously fiddled with the well worn silver flower-charm to the point where it was downright polished, told him that the piece was obviously important to her. He hummed in the affirmative.

"I asked Inoichi about the charm and what kind of flower it is. He said that it's a lily. So I was thinking, how do you like Sayuri?"

"Sayuri, huh?" He rolled the name on his tongue. Sayuri - little lily. "Yeah. Yeah, I like it." Shikaku said with a lazy smile. It kind of fit her.

AN

So, I'm not sure if I got my medical fact right here, but if not … it's magic. So there.

Edit 20.11.19 / Introduced minor corrections and clarifications.

/AN


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